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I've read many of your comments in UT, and I think we're of similar experience and like mind.
I owe a lot to my military experience. Whatever native talents I had were dead in the water before I went in the army. I also learned to think, to ask questions, to take some responsibility for not allowing my abilities to be misused. I've never had a job since where I took regular courses on how to determine what is or is not a lawful order, and how to disobey. The army also made me a liberal ... how can you live in an institution of the state that takes responsibility for feeding and clothing you, your medical care, your education, training and your professional development, and making you work hard to be somethign better, and *not* be a liberal, I always wonder?
All that has led to me being a citizen that asks a hell of a lot of questions and encouraging, and occasionally teaching others to do the same. Sure, other people become that without setting foot anywhere near a military base. I couldn't have. I don't know about you, but I would not have been that way if I'd stayed in my little patch of Appalachia (or continuing living on the street as I had for almost a year before I signed up).
Peace ---
qs
